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France
The France map is, as its name implies, a map covering the present day French Republic (excluding its overseas territories and islands). The name "France" comes from the Latin word “Francia” which literally means "land of the Franks" or "Frankland". The map covers the historical core territory of France where the French, during 2,000 years of French history, have fought countless battles and wars. 44 total regions, 7 bonus zones. A medium sized classic gameplay map. This is a very flexible map which works with any settings. An excellent map for doubles because both teams will start with a 3 troop drop. On the small side for quad games but workable. Bonuses Spoils Escalating Paris has a great deal of reach, as does Marne, Saone et Loire, and Haute Vienne. The best bottlenecks on the map are Paris, Creuse (Paris and Creuse held together prevent all east-west movement across the map), and Loire Atlantic, which holds the keys to the Brittany bonus. There are no true dead ends on this map, though a number of regions have only two access points, including Corsica, Manche, Eure, Nord, Aude, Pyrenees, and all of Brittany. The map is excellent with escalating spoils for any number of players up to 8 for both terminator and standard games. Fog of war works well for the map and the regions with a lot of reach become key. Flat rate and no spoils Brittany is the natural bonus zone most will gravitate toward, simply due to its single entry point. As a result quite a fight usually develops over control of it. Alsace looks easy to hold but is not due to having 3 regions which can access it. In multiplayer flat rate, nuclear, and no spoils games, because of the importance of building strong borders, all bonus zones can be attractive except the two center bonus zones, Centre and Burgundy. Picardy is an excellent long term bonus zone for these games because of its attractive ratio of bonus to territories needed to defend it. 1v1 Each player begins with 14 regions. It will be difficult to reduce your opponent to 11 regions on Round 1, but this should be the long term goal. The other goal should be to immediately seize one region in order to have 15 and therefore drop 5 troops each round. The easiest bonus zone to hold is Brittany, as it has a single region that can be attacked from outside the bonus area. The other bonus zone which can be held fairly easily is Alsace, but be aware 3 regions can attack into Alsace and 2 have to be defended to protect the zone bonus. Other bonus zones will be fairly hard to hold unless the drop happens to place neutral regions in a way that form a natural border. Likeliest case for this would be Picardy. Any kind of spoils works well for the map, including nuclear spoils. Manual deployment on this map, as on most classic open maps, will usually degenerate into crashing stacks of troops fairly quickly with the first turn being critical. The map plays well with both fog of war and sunny (no fog of war) settings. Fog of war may encourage an attempt at some of the larger zone bonuses but if they can be held the game is usually decided anyway. Team games Paris and Creuse become extremely important choke points in team games. For larger team games on this map, especially quad games, the usual strategy is to target someone for elimination. Zone bonuses are probably only relevant for doubles and on some occasions triples. As with other game types, Brittany is an attractive bonus zone so long as it has only one neutral region or none. It is usually not worthwhile to have to whittle down two stacks of 3 neutral troops for a +2 zone bonus. Unlimited reinforcements are generally not recommended for team games on an open map like this as they give the first team to take a turn a big advantage. I'd recommend chained or adjacent reinforcements. For doubles, each player will drop 11 regions. This means the first order of business if a bonus zone is not immediately available, is to get 12 regions to increase your troop drop to 4. Each player will drop 7 regions in a triples or 6 player doubles game, and 5 regions in a quad or 8 player doubles team game. As a result the map is not recommended for a 8 player doubles game as it is too small. For quad and triples games, it is best to have one player try to grow his strength and be the aggressor while the others support him. Due to the size of these games turn order becomes crucial because eliminations can happen in early rounds with either attacker's advantage or due to poor reinforcements.